“It is,
therefore, also evident that in living out their secular vocations, Christians
come to experience very definite limits, and that in certain cases the
call into a secular vocation must of necessity be followed by the call to leave
that worldly vocation…What defines these limits is our very belonging to the
visible community of Christ” (page 228).
“The limits are
reached wherever there is a clash between the space the body of Christ claims
and occupies in this world for worship, offices, and the civic life of its
members, and the world’s own claim for space” (page 228).
“That this state
of affairs has been reached becomes at the same time evident in two ways.
First, it becomes necessary for members of the church-community to make a
visible and public confession of faith in Christ. Second, it becomes necessary
for the world either wisely to withdraw or to resort to violence” (page 228).
Bonhoeffer then
writes that those who suffer for Christ, “Join their Lord in a visible
community of suffering. They now need even more the full fellowship and
support of brothers and sisters in the church-community” (page 228, italics
mine).
While I hope you
are reading Discipleship (or as it is also known, The Cost of
Discipleship) along with us, I’ve quoted extensively above in order to
capture the flow of Bonhoeffer’s tightly woven thought.
Let’s keep in
mind that the title of this chapter is The Visible Church-Community.
Bonhoeffer is asking us, “What should we look like in the world? What space
should we occupy? How should we be identified? What are the marks of the
church-community?”
When we are
asked what space we ought to occupy, and how we, as the People of God, ought to
be identified, our answers may well gravitate toward church buildings on Sunday
mornings – our thinking tends to be building centric, organizational centric.
Who we are and what we do as Christians tends have their center of gravity in
organizations and buildings. The space we occupy tends to be restricted to the
address of our local church building.
(I am reminded
of a tee-shirt a friend of mine wore which said, “I love my church.” Well now,
I suppose that is nice, but how much better to proclaim, “I love the Church.”
If, as a pastor, I have not taught my people to love the Church, then we still
have a long way to go.)
When we “see”
the church, do we tend to see our local congregation, our building, our
organizational structure? Do we place the church in a ghetto? Have we erected walls
in our minds around the church, confining it to a building, a place, an
organization; limiting its expression to certain times and places?
When we meet
Christians of other congregations, do we see the church? When we encounter
Christians in the workplace, in the marketplace, do we see the church?
Bonhoeffer tells
us that there are “very definite limits” to our vocations (as previously
mentioned, the word “secular” is unfortunate). He also tells us that there are
times when we must leave our vocations, and that these limits and decisions are
defined by our belonging “to the visible community of Christ.” He follows this
thinking up by giving examples of vocations which the Early Church deemed incompatible
with discipleship, as well as vocations which society closed to Christians.
He also, in the
above quotes, points out that conflict with the world can result in the
Christian withdrawing from a vocation – this would be true of a vocation in
general and a job in particular. In other words, a vocation may have, in and of
itself, elements which make it incompatible with faithfulness to Jesus Christ
and His People. It may also happen that a particular position in a particular
organization may be incompatible with our life in Christ and in the Church;
this could be due to the nature and practices of an organization.
Do you see challenges
to Bonhoeffer’s thinking? What are the barriers to us, at least in the West, accepting
what Bonhoeffer writes?
Here are my
observations, can you expand on them?
The first challenge
is that money has become our arbiter. That is, our decisions are guided by
money, by economics. We have become so absorbed with money, the love of which
is indeed the root of all evil, that the “bottom line” has come to justify our
decisions without much question. Not only has money become our guide, but we
dare not challenge another brother or sister’s decision in a matter if it is
based on sound economic thinking.
The second
challenge is that we live in an individualistic mindset as opposed to living as
members of the Body of Christ, as members of the visible church-community. Our
lives are our own, we don’t really think of them as belonging to Christ Jesus,
or as belonging to His Body. We will make our own decisions about vocation,
about what we do and how we do it. No one will tell us, or even suggest, that
what we do or how we do it may be incompatible with the Scriptures and the
Person of Jesus Christ. No one has the “right” to suggest that our jobs are
harmful to humanity.
We fail to see
that as members of Christ, what we do is what the Body of Christ does, our actions
are extensions of Jesus Christ, they are expressions of the visible
church-community. Shall we soil the garments of Christ? Shall we inflict harm
on humanity? Shall we bring shame on the Gospel?
A third
challenge is whether the visible church-community will support a sister or
brother who must leave their vocation, or their particular job, due to
obedience to Jesus Christ. If vocation XYZ is deemed incompatible with
Christian discipleship and a brother or sister must leave employment in that
field, will the visible church-community support that member through transition
to another vocation?
This third
challenge is present whether we speak in terms of the nature of a vocation, or
in terms of faithfulness to Christ when the disciple is confronted with ungodly
practices. That is, a vocation in and of itself may be wonderful, providing income
to the worker and an avenue of service to society, but a situation may arise in
which a disciple must choose between obedience to Jesus Christ and obedience to
the ungodliness of the world. In such instances, will the visible
church-community stand with the obedient disciple, encouraging and economically
supporting the disciple through that season of life?
The limits
to our vocations are defined by our belonging to the visible church-community,
we represent Christ and His Body in all that we do. Our church-community
establishes boundaries on both vocations (some are out of bounds) and practices
within a vocation.
What might we
consider vocations that are unacceptable to followers of Jesus Christ? What
vocations are clear to us as being incompatible with our life in Christ and as members
of the Body of Christ? What vocations are problematic? What vocations do our
understanding wrestle with in terms of right and wrong, good and evil,
acceptable and unacceptable, edifying and harmful?
Is it possible
that we have become such prisoners of money that we cannot consider these questions?
Being in
koinonia with the visible church-community defines and limits our vocational practice
in a way that has been vital to me – the presence of my brothers and sisters is
with me in my thinking and decision-making and my actions. My friendships in
Christ are an element of my vocational practice, knowing that in our koinonia
we have koinonia with the Trinity (1 John 1:3). The deeper the friendships, the
higher the shared joy in Jesus, the greater the presence in my life of my
brothers and sisters – to betray Jesus is to betray my friends in Christ, to
betray my friends in Christ is to betray Jesus. To sin in my vocation, to disobey
Christ Jesus in my vocation, is to also sin against my brothers and sisters in
Christ who are part of my life, who are woven into my heart and soul.
To disobey Christ
in my vocation is to pollute my koinonia with the visible church-community, and
most especially with those in Christ who trust me in friendship. It is better,
far better, to suffer for obedience to Jesus Christ and incur the rejection of
the world, than to betray Jesus and my friends.
Of course, if we
have never experienced intimacy in the Body of Christ, if the visible
church-community is not at the core of our soul, if we do not live for the
welfare of the Body and the salvation of others, then we may not relate to what
I’m sharing. This is much like the truth that if we don’t really know Jesus,
then we can’t truly share Him with others; we can only give away that which is
ours to give.
The Lord
willing, we’ll continue with these quotations from Bonhoeffer in our next reflection
in this series.
